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As the business landscape is constantly evolving, more and more companies are looking for ways to reduce costs without sacrificing quality and simultaneously increasing efficiency. One of the decisions that many businesses make is whether or not to choose between seat leasing or working from home for their employees.
Seat leasing is a type of arrangement where a company rents out “seats” or complete workstations in a shared office space. This is usually done to provide employees with a dedicated workspace or on some occasions to forego the building of their own infrastructure, which would inflate the cost of business.
Work from home is a different type of arrangement in which employees are able to perform their job duties outside of a traditional office setting, as its name suggests it’s usually done from the comfort of their home but also extends to other locations outside the office such as a coffee shop or anywhere with internet access really.
Seat leasing can be a great option for businesses that need a dedicated office space for their employees, but don’t have the resources or budget to lease or buy their own space. Some of these benefits include:
There are also drawbacks to seat leasing to consider as well:
Working from home is becoming an increasingly popular option for businesses, due to factors like the COVID pandemic, the advancement of technology, and the growing desire for more flexible work setups. Some of the benefits of working from home include:
However, there are also potential drawbacks to consider with WFH setups:
Ultimately, the choice between seat leasing and working from home will depend on the specific needs of and situation of your business. It’s important to weigh all factors and consider the long-term implications before you make a decision. You could also consider having a hybrid setup, where some of your staff work from a seat leasing office while others work remotely, as this can help you access the best of both worlds.
Another important aspect to consider is employees’ preferences and needs, some employees might prefer working from a dedicated office space where they can separate their work and personal lives, while others may prefer the flexibility that working from home provides them. You should communicate with your employees to find out their needs and preferences to help make a more informed choice as it will affect both your business and your employees.
Both seat leasing and WFH have their own merits and drawbacks, making the “right” choice is dependent on your business needs and circumstances. You should factor in items such as the size of your business, employee preferences, and needs, along with your budget, and any rules or regulations that might affect your business. It’s important to be informed about what each service brings to the table and you need to be willing to try different arrangements in order to find a solution that best suits your business and employees.
Seat leasing has been a popular option for businesses operating in the Philippines. With its cost savings and flexibility, it’s not surprising that this alternative to office leasing and buying out an entire office has gained more traction among businesses trying to get a foothold in the Philippines.
Seat leasing is a service involving the renting of individual workstations instead of the entire office space. Unlike office leasing, which only includes the building and no other piece of infrastructure, seat leasing allows you to have instant access to a workstation where you or your staff can immediately begin working.
This is a great option for businesses that are just starting. The lower overhead cost will allow them to reallocate their resources to other areas. Seat leasing is also an attractive option for seasonal accounts and businesses with staff in other countries but no physical space.
Cost and time savings are the biggest benefits of seat leasing. It allows businesses to only pay for the number of desks or workstations they need, rather than investing into a whole building and having to build their own infrastructure. Businesses wanting to start right away can save time due to the plug-and-play nature of seat leasing.
As an additional benefit, seat leasing provides instant access to the rest of the amenities the office has to offer. Any meeting rooms and recreational facilities will be made available to you. Newer companies will benefit more from this as they don’t have to stretch their budget in order to provide their staff with more quality of life benefits as they come with the seat leasing agreement.
Flexibility is another benefit that many businesses require. The flexibility to move around is given as most seat leasing deals are short-term. In the event that you and your staff don’t like a location or end up finding better options, you’re free to move. Do take note that many seat leasing offices require a heads-up before you withdraw.
Where exactly are the top seat leasing hotspots in the Philippines? It would be disingenuous not to list Manila as one of the most popular spots. As the capital of the country, it’s the central hub of the country. Cebu is another popular seat leasing destination as it has numerous co-working spaces and seat leasing providers. The same can be said for Davao as it is a growing hub. The Clark Freeport and Special Economic Zone is also another hotspot for seat leasing as they offer a wide number of providers who all offer a range of options that fit all business needs.
All of these hotspots are also business process outsourcing (BPO) and call center hubs. This makes finding more staff even easier as the talent pools in those areas are diverse enough to fill any role you can think of. They also attract more people as the infrastructure in these locations makes life easier. Public transportation is more accessible, internet connections are more stable, and the energy grid is big enough to support large business sectors.
If you’re already considering seat leasing in the Philippines, there are a couple of things to keep in mind before fully committing. Location is an important factor, choosing a location that is convenient for your staff and potential customers is critical. Picking a location that is nice in appearance but far from your employees may result in increased turnover rates.
Cost should also be factored into your decision. Saving on infrastructure is one of the benefits of seat leasing, and electing to go with a costly place would eliminate one of the main draws of seat leasing.
The provided amenities at each location should also be taken into consideration. Choosing a place that has everything your staff requires plus having the extra quality of life improvements at a lower price point than their competitors would be a great option.
Seat leasing is a popular and cost-effective option for businesses looking for a more flexible setup. Whether you’re a small start-up or a bigger company requiring more space, seat leasing in Clark, Manila, Cebu, or Davao would give you instant access to workstations. With all the benefits of seat leasing, it’s no wonder these hotspots have seen a growth in business activity over the years.
Seat leasing is a fantastic option if you have staff in a remote location, but you still want to give them a dedicated workplace. As other office spaces have been created as team think tanks, you can also benefit from a setting like that, without all the financial investment and time it takes to create it.
For companies with remote staff, especially those in other countries, seat leasing is the best option for keeping everyone productive and successful. An office setting helps foster a sense of community, gives employees instant access to tried and tested equipment, and allows business owners to have better oversight of their staff.
Company culture is more important than ever with the younger generation of employees coming into the working fold. It is an important factor in drawing in and retaining staff. Building a culture with remote employees who all work from their homes is a daunting task even for the biggest companies.
Seat leasing gives businesses the ability to have a hub for their staff, a singular place where employees can mingle and culture can grow. With proper management in place and leased seats, you can have your culture grow within your remote team(s).
Building up your culture within your remote staff will help you retain your talent with the added benefit of attracting more talent in those areas. This gives you the potential to expand in the location of your seat lease, whether that is in the same country as the rest of your business or outside of it.
One of the biggest benefits of seat leasing is instant access to infrastructure. Employees won’t have to worry about providing their own materials and you won’t have to shoulder the responsibility of sending out company materials to your remote employees. This saves even more time and money, especially if your staff are overseas.
Any conference rooms and extra amenities can also be used by your employees. The more fully-equipped the seat leasing office, the more your staff has access to. In many cases, seat leasing with offshore staff may save you a substantial amount of money as you won’t have to shell out to build your own office, which is a large investment.
Another benefit of seat leasing is the ease of moving. You get instant access to the infrastructure of any seat leasing office you avail. If your standards are not met, you are capable of moving as most seat leasing contracts are short-term, meaning after maybe a month, you can have your staff situated and already working at a new location.
Staff oversight is always a major pain point for business owners. It doesn’t matter whether the staff are in the same building or in a different country, with the latter being an even bigger issue, having someone act as boots on the ground helps ease any doubts management may have.
While it’s entirely possible to have someone managing a group of remote staff employees who are all working from home, it isn’t ideal for those who believe in a more traditional work setting. Seat leasing affords businesses the physical space to hire a manager to actually watch over your staff.
With seat leasing, you won’t have to worry about your staff being distracted by external stimuli. Their pets, friends, family, and any other potential distractions are removed from play while seat leasing.
Seat leasing gives business owners the ability to have staff anywhere in the world and still have the peace of mind that comes with an office setting. You can rest easy knowing that your remote staff will be treated the same as the rest of your in-office staff, with the difference being a different location.
The benefit of having instant access to all the equipment and amenities of a seat leasing building makes a big impact on your operations, especially with how easy it is to move from one location to another.
Perhaps the biggest draw to seat leasing is its traditional work setting nature, as it lets you have managers to oversee the rest of your staff, essentially making your remote workforce into a satellite office.
It’s often said that we’re products of our environment and that our output is only as good as the input, essentially, this means that our surroundings affect us more than we realize. This also translates to our working environment or office setups. Well-designed office setups can positively impact employee satisfaction, productivity, and even contribute to employee retention.
Traditional workstations did not allow for personalization. The old viewpoint was that, without personal items at a desk, employees would be able to focus purely on work due to the lack of distractions. With COVID forcing work-from-home setups, the traditional views have started to become antiquated.
Allowing employees to personalize their workstations within reasonable limits gives them a sense of connection to their workspace. After all that time spent working from home due to COVID, allowing a bit of that casual feeling from home into the workplace may help the transition back to the office go a little smoother. In addition, allowing employees to personalize their workstation gives them a better connection with their environment.
This connection is called place identity by psychologists, it directly links the attitudes of people to their environment. In one of Harvard’s studies, they found that if employees feel their workspace aligns with their self-image and enhances their sense of belonging, they respond more positively to the environment.
In their study, people who resonated with an open space were more proud to be there and were given a greater sense of connection which made their perception of the space more collaborative and comfortable. Those who did not resonate with the space found it distracting and hectic.
Allowing the personalization of workstations may help all types of people. Those who resonate with the space can put personal items such as family pictures which help make the space truly their space.
In the event that someone doesn’t resonate with the space, allowing them to customize it in a way that makes them comfortable still gives them more of that ownership. This ownership directly impacts the employee’s engagement level and even boosts productivity.
Ergonomics is the science involving the design and arrangement of things people use with the goal of being efficient and safe. When something is described as ergonomic, people generally mean that it’s designed for comfort and efficiency.
You may have seen advertisements for ergonomic keyboards, mice, chairs, etc, all of which are aimed at making work more comfortable. These items are usually shaped differently when compared to conventional tools as they’re designed to fit the natural shape of the general population.
For example, ergonomic keyboards are designed to follow the natural curvature of your hand as opposed to the now standard layout of a keyboard that forces your arms closer than normal and makes your fingers curl.
In a Workplace Wellness Trend Report done by Fellowes, it was found that 87% of workers would like their employer to offer healthier workspaces and that 93% of tech industry workers would stay longer in a company that offered healthier workplace benefits. These surveys suggest that having a more health-focused workspace would increase retention in the office.
While the price of ergonomic office items is much higher than standard equipment, the cost of attrition is much higher. The Gallup consultancy group estimates attrition costs to range from 50% to 200% of the employee’s annual salary. This number jumps even higher for C-suite level positions.
While referring back to the place identity theory, it isn’t guaranteed that having ergonomic office setups will make everyone happy, the general consensus is that it does, in fact, improve retention rates. There isn’t much to lose by improving the working conditions of your employees, after all, people spend more than a third of their lives at a desk.
Proper arrangement isn’t some Feng Shui thing where different colors need to be next to certain things, it’s about putting the right people next to each other in order to make collaboration easier.
Teams that collaborate frequently should be seated close to each other, as this would reduce the amount of time it takes for one person to communicate with someone else. Putting web developers near designers will allow for seamless communication when working on joint projects.
Properly arranging departments also allows you to keep distractions away from other people. For example, a team that does calls, such as sales, should be put far from teams that tend to get loud, such as marketing or customer service.
In terms of productivity, you can get teams to collaborate effortlessly. It’s more of a quality-of-life move linked with efficiency, not directly intended to promote retention.
Circling back to place identity, the feeling of control and belonging directly impacts employee engagement levels. Disengaged employees have a higher tendency to quit their job and force their previous employers to fill the position again. In contrast, highly engaged employees exhibit more effort when doing their job, resulting in higher levels of productivity and higher retention levels.
In a study by Steelcase, it was observed that employees who are happy with their workplace setting displayed higher levels of engagement. The same study also discovered that about a third of workers don’t fall into the engaged or disengaged camp, and they exist in the gray area in the middle.
Improving the workplace can help push this undecided portion of employees to join the other engaged employees in the office. Making positive changes in the office, based on previously mentioned topics, is a start to getting this group to become more engaged.
Investing in your employees may require some capital but it will keep them happy and working. The alternative is replacing them and that costs leagues more than it would to retain them. Making the effort to improve the office setup of your employees also goes a long way. It shows that management is paying attention and cares about staff.
Aside from providing paid training, the seemingly small gesture of investing in your employees by improving their working conditions. By allowing employees the small freedom of personalizing their workspace, you allow them to control some of their settings, making them more engaged compared to working at a generic workstation.
Recruitment is an ongoing process in all businesses that never ends. Employees quit, get fired, and sometimes get promoted, leaving a vacancy that needs to be filled. Filling these positions becomes vital as the vacancy oftentimes translates to the rest of the team picking up the slack.
The added workload may lower morale and a whole slew of problems can arise. Luckily, a proper recruitment team can solve this issue. Whether you elect to use an internal recruitment team or an external one is up to you, as they both come with their own pros and cons.
Internal recruitment is a team of recruiters directly employed by your company. These are employees you hire directly and do the recruiting in-house for you. They are usually part of or under the umbrella of your HR department.
External recruitment would consist of third-party recruiters who recruit on behalf of your company. These recruiters either augment your internal recruitment efforts or can completely replace the need for an internal recruitment team.
An internal recruitment team means having more control. You can decide what processes are implemented and how the recruitment flow should go.
The benefit to this amount of control is the ability to fine-tune your recruitment process on the fly. If you find out that many candidates are dropping out or ghosting you during a specific step, you can make modifications to rectify the situation.
Faster communication with your internal recruitment team is strictly between you and them, it doesn’t include recruiter to applicant/candidate communication as that is dependent on a variable not within your control.
Even if the company is big and the recruitment department is housed in a different location, any changes or messages from you to them will still be faster than that of a third-party recruitment center as you are at the mercy of their response time.
The speed at which you can fill rank and file roles is faster with an internal recruitment team. This is due to the fact that you don’t have to undergo the waiting period that happens in between candidate endorsements.
Rank and file positions that have a high attrition rate can easily be filled continuously by an internal team at no extra cost per hire. Positions such as customer service or technical support, where the average employee only stays for a year, are some of the most common positions that need to be filled continuously.
Internal recruitment teams have the drawback of being a constant expense. Unlike third-party recruitment teams who are paid in one big lump sum after someone has successfully been hired through them, an internal team must be paid no matter the situation. This becomes detrimental during periods of time where there are no requisitions. While this means the company is doing well, it also means that your recruiters aren’t productive.
Another expense tied to internal recruiters is the tool subscriptions. Applicant tracking systems and recruitment platforms all cost money. Depending on your company’s tools, you could be spending a large amount of money on recruitment.
A talent pool is generally limited to your home country. International recruitment comes with its own set of rules and regulations, many of which are complex and require in-depth knowledge to do without any penalties.
While the talent pool may seem big for countries like the US, having access to several other locations allows for an even bigger candidate pool and comes with the benefit of a different salary range.
From the initial creation to the constant management of the team, internal recruitment takes time and effort that some people may not have. Aside from having to take time out of your schedule to create the whole recruitment process or simply hiring a recruitment head, building a team takes time and resources you may not have.
As mentioned before, control is a pro as you have the ability to tweak your team as you see fit, the con to this is that it takes time to get everything running in a way that fits your company.
Unlike its in-house counterpart, third-party recruitment teams are paid in one big lump sum after a candidate has successfully been hired. While there are different pay structures, the best part is that you don’t pay until a candidate is hired.
If a third-party passes you candidates that do not make your cut, you won’t have to pay the fee. Do note that there is a flat rate charged in some cases, so it’s recommended to ask your third-party provider of choice what their policy is.
It would make sense that hiring an external recruitment team with the access and know-how to hire abroad would expand your talent pool. The diversity offered is also a benefit in most cases.
For example, if you have a team of designers all from the same place, chances are the core concepts of their designs are the same. If you hire from a different country, with a completely different culture, you have a higher chance of finding different ideas. This goes for any job but even more so for anything labeled as “creative” or any job that benefits from different viewpoints.
If you have your own recruitment team, augmenting them with a third-party recruitment team will expedite the candidate searching process. Building a shortlist of the best candidates will take a fraction of the time it usually takes, especially for those more technical hires, such as developers.
In the event that you outsource all of your recruitment to an external recruitment company, it benefits them to close requisitions fast as they’re still paid based on successful hires and not hours worked.
It’s stated above that there is a single fee for external recruitment companies. You don’t have to pay for the work in between finding candidates, only the successful hiring of staff merits the fee.
The most common fee is around 10% of the hired staff’s yearly salary. If a developer was hired at $100,000 a year, then the fee would be $10,000. Weighing this cost versus having a full-time internal recruitment team might be something you want to sit down and actually plan out with the rest of your team.
Unlike an internal recruitment team, you cannot see everything happening. You can’t check the pipeline of candidates, meaning you can’t go through those who were dropped to see exactly why they were dropped from the pipeline. This also means you can’t see how many people are actually being screened compared to how many are being sent to you.
When your external recruitment efforts are slow, you have to set up a meeting with their manager in order to get to the bottom of things. This can depend on the availability of both managers, and meeting and is harder to pull off than simply calling a meeting with an internal team.
If you have both an internal recruitment team and an external or third-party recruitment team, their recruitment efforts could possibly intersect. What this means is if both teams are looking for developers, one or more of those developers might apply on different platforms.
Your in-house recruiters might be searching on platforms “A” and “B” while the third-party team is searching on “X” and “Y.” Candidates can be on all of these platforms as they aren’t restricted, as applying to jobs is free.
This situation might end up costing you more money than you initially wanted if the third-party brings you a candidate that you could have got yourself. This brings in the con of pricing, as the third party gets one big chunk.
In line with the intersecting candidates, the way the job is “sold” to each applicant may be different. Third-party recruiters are incentivized to sell the position as a hire means getting paid, while an in-house recruiter will be paid whether or not the position is filled.
Deciding on whether to outsource your recruitment efforts is a choice you can’t take lightly. While there are pros and cons to both an internal team and an external recruitment team, the choice should revolve around your needs and resources.
If you foresee a constant need to hire, having your own internal recruitment team will be cheaper in the long run. However, if you’re planning on hiring in a rigorous manner where the employees are incentivized to stay long term, it might be cheaper to pay that one big lump sum to a third-party recruitment team like an RPO.
It’s important for businesses to maximize their resources. This is why third-party service providers all over the world offer different options, being able to cater to the needs of a wide variety of business owners/professionals allows them to stay competitive in their industry. While many people like the easy plug-and-play options call centers to give them, others seek a service that gives them more options and control, one such solution is seat leasing.
Seat leasing is a service that allows businesses to rent out already set up workstations. You will provide the employees that fill the seats and the seat leasing provider will provide the complete infrastructure. Due to COVID, many seat leasing companies have chosen to forego the inclusion of auxiliary items such as headsets.
The service was built for those who have staff but no infrastructure. While the use case for the service isn’t limited to anyone, it was meant for 3 main audience types:
By far, one of the most beneficial aspects of seat leasing is the ability to change seat numbers quickly. If you’re running a seasonal account for a couple of months and end up needing way more staff, you’re able to avail of more seats by simply informing your service provider the exact number. While most places will require a month’s notice before a change, many providers will allow it with an extra charge.
As stated before, the seat leasing services gives you the infrastructure needed to work. A basic workstation is already set up for your staff, so when the agreed-upon time comes to start, everything will be ready. While the service is technically considered to be “plug and play,” it is still important to ask your chosen provider what comes with it. Depending on the provider, you may be able to request special items for additional fees, but more on that later on.
It should go without saying that when leasing out seats in an already established building, you will have access to IT solutions in some capacity. Like with additional items, it is important to ask exactly what is covered by your chosen plan, as in some cases, only certain technical problems will be covered by a basic plan. In most cases, hardware problems are covered by the basic plan and the onsite IT staff will be able to assist with them.
Full-service business process outsourcing centers that offer seat leasing will also have additional services available. These additional services usually include:
Each service allows you to solve specific pain points such as scaling up your business quickly with recruitment. The HR services option allows you to focus solely on productivity as backend tasks like payroll, compensation and benefits will be handled by the service provider. Essentially you could have a remote staffing style service with seat leasing.
With wholesale businesses, the larger the amount, the bigger the savings per piece. The same can be said for seat leasing, the more seats you lease, the lower the price per seat. Some providers will even give free access to services once you hit a certain number. Of course, these numbers depend on each service provider, but reaching a certain bracket of seats means cheaper overall prices, making an already cost-effective service even more enticing.
With all of the benefits going for it, seat leasing is a viable option for those looking for alternatives to call center outsourcing. Offerings like flexible terms and additional services put it a step above call centers as you’re in control as opposed to being at the will of the call center’s rules. The next time you need more office space, take a look at seat leasing options to see if they better fit your needs.
At its core, seat leasing is renting out space in an already established office for your employees to work in. It allows those with staff but no office space to gain access to the infrastructure needed to get right into work. Your staff will gain instant access to the amenities the office provides; these, of course, change depending on who and where the seat leasing office is located. This business model works no matter where you are, as seat leasing services are available worldwide.
Before the world seemed to shut down due to the pandemic, seat leasing was a growing business solution for companies worldwide. Being able to scale their business quickly made this a favorable option. In addition, offshore seat leasing options were, and still are, available, meaning that companies building overseas teams for processes such as customer service could start immediately and quickly grow their business due to the flexibility of seat leasing solutions.
While seat leasing can be used for any type of employee, across numerous industries, customer service or call center style positions were some of the most commonplace for seat leasing. A close second would include virtual assistants. Essentially think of executive assistants but in an online capacity.
COVID essentially put these business styles on hold. Those who were already using the service stopped adding seats. In more extreme cases, these businesses pulled out their staff and allowed for work-from-home setups as long as the staff had the required tools to work from home, essentially a PC and a stable internet connection. While this situation was not ideal regarding staff oversight, some companies could get by, while others quickly found out this was not a solution to the world’s current problem. A proverbial nail in the coffin of seat leasing during the pandemic involved the downsizing of companies. Departments shrunk in order for companies to survive, meaning all the staff these companies had were unfortunately laid off, and the seat leasing was discontinued.
With restrictions winding down worldwide, more people are returning to work in their offices, seat leasing is gaining popularity once more. New businesses, particularly those in the small to mid-sized categories, are once again taking advantage of the option in order to help reduce costs.
The benefits of seat leasing have actually increased due to the economy after the pandemic. With the high barriers of entry into business, seat leasing allows newer companies to establish departments such as customer service in offshore locations without actually paying for their own building. The lowered costs of the offshore remote staff combined with the cost of seat leasing and the ability to upscale as needed means even newer companies have a chance to compete in their industries. Without needing to worry about the infrastructure, and with plug-and-play style workstations, work can begin as soon as the staff gets to their desks.
Another reason seat leasing is booming is that the flock of companies leased before the pandemic are now returning. While some are trying out other companies, others are returning to their previous partners. No matter who their chosen provider is now, the service as a whole is seeing an increase in both inquiries and clients.
Although there was a rough patch for seat leasing companies during the pandemic, like other companies that survived, they’re making a comeback in our post-pandemic world. By offering cost-effective infrastructure that’s ready to be used, seat leasing companies are staying relevant in a post-pandemic economy.
If you came here for a short answer, it’s no. Kept that as short as possible for you. If you’re still wondering why the answer is no, then the rest of this article might help.
Seat leasing is an available option for many different types of businesses in a variety of situations, but has two main targets, businesses with staff but no workspace, and temporary or seasonal accounts. These two types of businesses cover the majority of the clients who avail of this service. While there is a defined audience, it is rare for them to continue to use the service past certain points in their growth cycle.
Another big factor in why seat leasing can’t be the end-all-be-all for remote work setups is because remote staffing exists. This one solution solves all the problems businesses all around the world have, but only for businesses that run continuously, AKA, nothing that only runs for a couple of months out of the year.
With the intended audience for seat leasing being more temporary than permanent, customers come and go. This is alright if you’re only running seasonal accounts because it saves you money for the rest of the year. These seasonal accounts may be the only recurring customers for seat leasing services.
The other main target for seat leasing are those businesses without infrastructure. This happens in one of two ways. One, the business has to temporarily close its location for any number of reasons but will reopen at a later date. Instead of being out of commission for a while and losing employees, they can choose to find seat leasing solutions that allow them to continue their operations in the meantime.
The audience is the main reason seat leasing will never hit the same amount of numbers as other solutions such as remote staffing. The sheer number of permanent customers overshadows the amount that only need a workstation temporarily, ultimately making seat leasing not as popular of an option.
Seat leasing serving the purpose of a temporary base of operations while you put together your own building or find one to rent long-term is a great service. It’s affordable, flexible, and in some cases the best option. For what it does, there is no limit. The limit comes when you’re ready to grow as a company.
A solution such as remote staffing with a full-service BPO is a more robust solution to having staff offshore than seat leasing. A crude comparison is that of a canoe, yes, it can get you from place to place, but you’d much rather be on a yacht, as it has fewer quality of life features. Seat leasing would be the canoe that can get you from point A to B, but remote staffing would be the yacht that will get you there in the most comfortable way possible.
Remote staffing is more robust and actually designed around helping companies grow. Seat leasing has options to increase seats and while this is growth, it lacks the customizability and some of the functions of remote staffing.
Without getting into it too much, the remote staffing service is a bespoke solution for those who need staff but lack the funds, time, and other resources to get a team going. The recruiting, administration, and technical aspects of hiring employees is all taken care of you as part of this service. At its core it is a highly customizable service that allows you to get the staff you need at a fraction of the cost. This is due to the staff being in a different country. The same quality you’d find locally, but due to the currency rates, ends up saving your business a sizeable amount of capital. For example, if you’re looking to start a customer service department, you could hire a whole team of remote customer service representatives at the price of a single one locally.
Now, this doesn’t go without saying, the main target audience of seat leasing doesn’t really match what the remote staffing service offers. A business that is looking for a temporary office with already hired staff CAN partner with a BPO and avail of remote staff, but it typically doesn’t happen. This, however, doesn’t stop remote staffing as a popular option as the number of businesses that want permanent employees who will integrate into their culture is vastly greater than the number of people who need temporary solutions.
While it may seem like remote staffing is the best option between the two, it will all depend on your business needs. If you need something temporary, just so your employees can continue work, choosing remote staffing wouldn’t make sense, as you wouldn’t need to hire new long-term employees, you just need the workstations. Likewise, if you need long-term employees, you wouldn’t want to avail of seat leasing due to its temporary nature. The main reason seat leasing isn’t as widely availed is due to the number of businesses that are looking for more permanent people solutions, as opposed to a temporary fix to a problem.
As a small or mid-sized business owner, getting the most out of your money is much more critical, especially when compared to bigger companies that have substantially more leeway when it comes to budgets. Being well informed is one step towards being able to efficiently make use of your resources. If you’re already looking into something along the lines of hiring offshore staff and have come across seat leasing and remote staffing options, being able to discern which service fulfills your needs the best while having a more cost-effective price point, will make the difference between a successful venture and a waste of both valuable time and money.
The core service of seat leasing is centered around renting out furnished workstations, whether it be in the same country or a different one. Companies that have staff hired but lack a location are generally the people that sign up for this business model. Without having to worry about buying, renting, or building an infrastructure from the ground up, the business can begin as soon as the agreement with the seat leasing provider is signed.
Seat leasing doesn’t just stop at the renting of workstations. Depending on who your seat leasing provider is, they may offer additional services such as HR, IT, and recruitment. Business process outsourcing companies or BPOs are the most common seat leasing providers that offer these services. Availing all of these services essentially gives you a remote staffing style service without actually availing of remote staffing. This style of service brings the benefit of selecting which additional service you need in the event that you only need one or all of them.
While getting into specific pricing would yield inaccurate expectations due to the varying prices in different locations and with different service providers, seat leasing is generally financially cheaper than remote staffing. It’s mentioned that it is financially cheaper because, in terms of time saved, seat leasing won’t beat out remote staffing, as that service includes all the tools needed to bypass all of the administrative minutiae associated with hiring staff in another country.
In all honesty, any business that can be done on a computer is a suitable match for seat leasing. The businesses that will get the most out of it would be businesses that need a temporary location or a business looking to save on infrastructure costs by just renting space while wanting the ability to move location at a moment’s notice. Seasonal accounts who don’t want to buy their own space to only work a couple of months out of the year can avail of this service as some seat leasing companies, such as Clark Staff, allow for shorter-term agreements.
Imagine being able to hire people from anywhere in the world at a lower price than you could find locally, that’s essentially what the core of remote staffing is. The other noteworthy part of remote staffing is the ability to focus on only productivity, as the service provider will take care of all HR, IT, and recruiting needs for you. The time saved through this type of service is usually taken for granted until people try it themselves and realize how much more time a day they have without having to take care of backend team management tasks.
The first and most obvious benefit of hiring remote staff would be the cost savings. Take a graphic designer, for example, the average salary of a mid-level graphic designer in the US is about $4,172 a month whereas their remote staff equivalent in the Philippines would only cost
about $480 a month at the exchange rate of 54 Philippine Pesos to 1 US dollar.
Saving time on administrative tasks is a huge deal. It opens up more opportunities to maximize efficiency or take a breather. While not immediately quantifiable, the hours will start to reveal themselves, specifically once your remote team is up and running. If they become autonomous, you’ll have even more time to complete your own tasks as managing them won’t be too laborious.
Unlike with seat leasing, once you sign up for remote staffing, you get the whole package from recruitment, all the way to HR and IT helping to maintain the workstations that are provided. Do take note that different service providers will have different basic packages, but the most common workstation will include a PC, complete with peripherals such as the screen, keyboard, and monitor. For more specific setups, make sure to inquire with your chosen service provider, most if not all procurement requests will be granted after an agreement is met.
Pricing for the entire remote staffing service will depend on which country you choose and the specific provider. Do take note that there is a difference between a full-service BPO and a call center, with the former having customizable solutions that will fit your business and the latter needing you to hit certain requirements before you can avail of their service. While the price of remote staffing is higher than the base price of most seat leasing services, when all the addons are taken into consideration, they are usually comparable in price.
Any growing startup or permanent business of any size can avail of remote staffing services and be successful, given the right steps are taken. Picking a partner that can help you properly manage your staff is one step towards being successful with an offshore remote staffing team. Essentially, if you have any task that can be done on a computer, it can be done by remote staff. Professionals of multiple industries can be hired to work for your company on a remote basis, given that they fit your requirements. For countries that are used to the remote staffing model, finding a niche or job-specific staff isn’t too difficult as they’re more commonplace.
Choosing a service that allows you to get the best bang for your buck will allow your company to grow at a much more steady rate without waste. No matter what choice you go with, there are scalable options that will allow you to grow your company without having to spend excessive amounts of money. Make sure you’re asking questions during your meetings with your chosen service providers, as this is your chance to find out which provider is the best for you and your needs.
Have you ever been asked who the best manager, leader, or boss you’ve ever had was? Did you instantly picture them and remember all the good times you had? Can you explain what made that person the best? Chances are you’re going to mention things like being funny and understanding, along with other descriptors.
Ultimately there are two groups that decide who exactly an effective leader is: their boss(es) and their staff. Their staff will think their leader is effective if they can manage and help the team while keeping morale high. Their boss or bosses will see them as effective leaders based on the timeliness of their deliverables. Ultimately a couple of behaviors and traits will connect most effective leaders but not every great leader will encompass every single trait.
A behavior that leaders tend to have is the ability to lead by example. Most of the time leaders who exhibit this type of behavior will do it instinctively. The notion of “doing the right thing” is simply “doing the thing” to them. They will always be performing to the best of their abilities and encourage others even when under pressure. Do note that leading doesn’t always involve being out in front of everyone. Sometimes it involves taking a back seat to see what and how everyone is doing and providing them with the support they need to get the job done.
One way to lead by example is to take responsibility for your actions. In some cases, this will also include the actions of others. As a leader, you’re in charge of others and any failures on their parts reflect back to you. Instead of chewing out staff based on their shortcomings, acknowledge the fact that an undesired outcome happened, work to make sure it never happens again, and most importantly own the mistake. By passing on the blame all you’re showing your staff is that you don’t want to be associated with their performance, which in the long run will end up causing the team more damage. Owning a mistake will create a chain reaction in your team, leading them to do the same in the event of a mistake.
A good leader should always be lifting their staff up. This means encouraging professional development. In most cases, this should consist of training to improve upon their already assigned tasks. For example, a social media manager could be doing training to improve the quality of their content, they could be trained to use analytics in a more efficient manner that leads to more engagements or even conversions. In some cases, there are opportunities for staff to undergo training towards their long-term goals, even if they’re not directly in line with their current job. Suppose that you have a web developer who wants to grow into a team leader or supervisor role in the future, training courses such as leadership development or the Sigma Six training can help them achieve that goal.
While the main purpose of these training sessions is to better equip your team for their jobs. There is an added bonus of showing that the leader in question does care about their team. Having someone that wants to invest resources into their team’s growth and development goes a long way, especially with matters of morale and retention.
Great leaders will be different depending on both the company and the team working under them. Some traits that make leaders great in one company, might not fit the culture of another. In the end, as long as the team working under a certain manager delivers their tasks on time while staying motivated to work, a leader can be considered effective. Whether you are already a leader trying to improve or someone who hopes to be in a leadership position, just remember what the leaders you looked up to did and try to emulate that in your own way.
